Alternance Training in Texas: A Preliminary Overview

A study was undertaken to identify and evaluate state-of-the-art practices in alternance training used in community and junior colleges and technical institutes throughout Texas.Various arrangements combining alternating periods of study and work,including apprenticeships, cooperative education,internships, clinical experience, and practicums,were examined. Community colleges and technical institutes across Texas were surveyed by telephone to identify all programs that offered a worksite component as part of their regular curriculum during the 1986-87 academic year.More specific information regarding the programs was then collected from a survey mailed to all heads of programs with a worksite component. Almost 40 percent of the 1,998programs of postsecondary technical and vocational education offered a worksite component as part of their training. Cooperative education was the most common type of worksite training (accounting for 335programs or 43percent). Students were paid wages in about half of ail programs. In clinical programs, however, payment of wages to learners has been prohibited since 1973. Every campus originally surveyed had at least one worksite training program. However, educational practices varied widely among individual programs, and there was little communication or agreement on terms among practitioners associated with different programs. (Appendixes include the surrey forms used for the phase1telephone survey and phase 2 mail survey and the preliminary interview guide that is to be used for the phase 3 field visits.